A study released yesterday indicates that North Korea is likely to have bolstered its stockpile of fissile material more than sixfold since U.S. President George W. Bush took office in 2001, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 26).
The report, issued by the Institute for Science and International Security, concludes that Pyongyang has moved from possessing sufficient plutonium for no more than two nuclear weapons to having enough for up to 13. The study also predicts that it could have material for more than 17 bombs by 2009. “We conclude that North Korea is estimated to now have enough separated plutonium to develop a credible nuclear arsenal, on the order of 4 to 13 nuclear weapons and similar in size to South Africa’s nuclear weapons arsenal in the late 1980s at the height of its effort,” said co-authors David Albright and Paul Brannan. While the authors said that North Korea presently is unlikely to transfer the materials to a third party, they argued that could change in a “few years” if current production levels continue. They added that a 50-megawatt reactor still under construction would lead to a tenfold increase Pyongyang’s plutonium production capacity. However, there have been no signs in the last few months of major construction efforts on the project, Reuters reported. The report says North Korea is “likely able to build a crude nuclear warhead for its (medium-range) Nodong missile.” However, “there is little evidence to suggest that North Korea is capable of making a nuclear warhead light enough for the [long-range] Taepodong 2 missile,” it adds (Carol Giacomo, Reuters, June 26).
The British ambassador to Iran yesterday urged a speedy response to a nuclear compromise proposal offered to Tehran by the European Union, the New York Times reported (see GSN, June 26). “We believe that our relationship should be based on mutual respect and principles of international law,” incoming Ambassador Geoffrey Adams told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to a statement on the British Embassy’s Web site. “We hope that Iran will play a full role in regional and international affairs,” Adams said. “In that context, we believe that the recent proposals … constitute a sound basis for the resolution of the nuclear issue; and we look forward to the Iranian government’s early response.” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made a similar statement yesterday. “They have had the offer for two weeks already,” he said. “I hope a decision will be made soon in Tehran. I can’t imagine we would wait until Aug. 22.” Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal; Abdul Aziz Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; and Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul have also urged a positive response to the offer, according to the Times. Meanwhile, the Iranian daily Jomhouri Eslami on Sunday reported that Tehran might be considering a three-month suspension of uranium enrichment (Nazila Fathi, New York Times, June 27). Experts and diplomats said a compromise should be found soon, Agence France-Presse reported. Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard University, suggested in a paper that Iran be offered guarantees that its “future ability to resume enrichment” would not be forfeited by accepting a temporary freeze. “The stakes are very high at the moment,” Bunn told AFP. “No matter how this situation with Iran plays out, it will have huge effects for the future of the global effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons.” Bunn’s document recommends placing “the 164-centrifuge cascade at Natanz in a standby mode,” which could be done by either shutting down the plant or allowing centrifuges to spin without containing uranium gas. Washington, however, continues to oppose allowing any spinning of Iranian centrifuges that could produce weaponizable uranium, according to AFP. Bunn said the West wants to guarantee that “the standby activities would not significantly increase Iran’s capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons material.” However, “to be acceptable to Iran, an agreed approach would likely have to maintain Iran’s ability to restart operations at Natanz,” his paper says. “The dilemma of the West is that the deal it could get today is worse than the deal it could have gotten a year ago but better than what it could get a year from now. At some point a decision is better to cut one’s losses,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a nonproliferation analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (Agence France-Presse I/IranMania.com, June 27). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to attend a foreign ministers’ meeting Thursday in Moscow ahead of the Group of Eight summit next month in St. Petersburg, AFP reported yesterday. Rice plans to lobby her counterparts at the meeting to maintain a united position on Iran, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, June 26). Analysts said yesterday that a new Iranian foreign policy body created by the country’s top clerical leader could influence the nuclear dispute, which is now handled by the Supreme National Security Council, Reuters reported. “The nuclear crisis and Ahmadinejad’s radical foreign policy have pushed the leader to form this committee,” said analyst Mohammed Atrianfar (Reuters/Los Angeles Times, June 27).
The U.S. Energy Department is seeking the authority to quadruple the production of plutonium “pits” at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Feb. 8). The National Nuclear Security Administration wants annually to produce up to 80 nuclear cores that trigger the explosive chain reaction in a nuclear bomb. The laboratory is now authorized to make 20 pits a year, and expects to reach that production level in 2007. New triggers could be used as replacements in existing nuclear weapons and to test production technology, said Thomas D’Agostino, NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs. Allowing production of up to 80 pits would cover those that are not certified for use, he said. Los Alamos, however, might only manufacture 30 to 40 pits a year, he said. Some would replace those removed for testing while the others would be used for new procedures. “We want to test out (the technology we would use in a real factory, D’Agostino said. “These are very unique processes. You want to test them so then you can feel comfortable going to spend money on equipment and laying out equipment in the right way.” The watchdog group Nuclear Watch of New Mexico said the plans would produce more nuclear waste and plutonium to be stored at the facility and in other parts of the state. Nuclear Watch director Jay Coghlan said the expansion indicates an emphasis on weapons production at the New Mexico facility, AP reported. “As a result, the lab will inevitably lose its veneer as some kind of scientific ivory tower,” Coghlan said in a release. “Given the end of the Cold War and new national security threats such as energy independence and global climate change, is this really the best Los Alamos can do?” (Jennifer Talhelm, Associated Press The National Nuclear Security Administration eventually plans to remove plutonium from both its Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories and promote other areas of research at the facilities (Jennifer Talhelm, Associated Press, June 27). Los Alamos also plans to upgrade the plutonium pit facility, extending its life by 25 years, according to an environmental impact statement. The expansion would generate another 250 cubic yards of radioactive waste annually, increasing the number of “transuranic” waste barrels sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant by 1,800 each year, Nuclear Watch said in a press release. The statement also reported the laboratory stored 6.6 metric tons of “special nuclear materials inventory, mainly plutonium.” The Energy Department said in 1994 it possessed 2.7 metric tons of plutonium at Los Alamos, but has not given a reason for the increase, the Nuclear Watch release said. The anticipated expansion of nuclear weapons operations would process 87,000 pounds of high explosives. Up to 79,000 pounds of diminished uranium would be blown up in “dynamic experiments” every year. More than 2,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium would be used to make nuclear weapons components and 200 reservoirs of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen used in nuclear weapons, would be made annually (Nuclear Watch release, June 26).
The head of Germany’s Social Democratic Party said yesterday that Berlin should push for nuclear disarmament next year when it takes over the presidencies of both the European Union and the Group of Eight industrialized nations, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 19). “We as a government party will make certain that disarmament is on the agenda during these presidencies,” said SPD Chairman Kurt Beck. “We don’t want a spiraling arms race, not in individual regions or globally. That is why we are saying with emphasis that we don’t want a nuclear-armed Iran,” he said. The German government is led by a coalition of the Social Democratic Party and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is an SPD member. “I think the current conflict with Iran has made it clear that disarmament has to be on the international agenda again,” Steinmeier told Reuters. Steinmeier wants the G-8 to work toward “internationalizing the nuclear fuel cycle” so that countries do not need to develop individual uranium enrichment programs (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, June 26).
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